Travel Diaries and Journals

4

on the beautiful lake called 'The Broad' and which joined "my father's old farm" regardless of dear Mother's strict injunctions to "be home to Dinner" the happy hours flew unheeded by. In the dear old boat I followed the finny tribe to their favorite haunts, and seldom failed to entrap the bony pike, guady perch, or slippery eels. Happy happy days, with youth, health, and strength for my portion. True we had work, hard work at times, on a farm, be it large or small, there is always work to be done, our parents were good and kind, but no idleness was allowed. Spring brought its seed sowing and manuring the land, there were now and then a corn stack to be got into the barn for threshing, and the time of hunting the rats and mice when near the finish, sometimes the thrashing machine was set to work, when the market price of corn made [expodition?] desirable, and we youngsters looked on in wonder at the complication of cogs and wheels, then came the hay harvest, and Summer came on with the corn to be kept free of weeds; and the Autumn brought the reapers with the harvest beer, and the dinner under the shade of the poplar trees, the cold meat and bread, and the cool cucumber and salt, munched up with the most delightful relish, and four o'clock refreshment sent to us to the shade again, with dear mother's harvest cakes, the plums a long way apart in them, probably some had got loose from the paper when they came from the shop and of course none of us youngsters knew ought of it.

Winter came on and the stock to be sheltered from the cold, frozen turnips to be broken with a wooden beetle, the winters were more severe and